A look inside one of cottage country’s new condo communities

Over the past few years, planned condo communities have increasingly been popping up throughout cottage country. It’s cottaging-lite. By paying their maintenance fees, residents essentially outsource all the less relaxing aspects of vacation home ownership, like keeping everything safe over the winter. There are even on-site restaurants to save buyers the indignity of finding a decent place to eat in town. Here’s a look at what a few hundred thousand dollars (plus those maintenance fees) gets you at Cobble Beach, a quickly developing condo enclave on the shore of Georgian Bay.

The subdivision is built around a Doug Carrick–designed 18-hole golf course that overlooks the bay. In winter, the golf course becomes 14 kilometres of hiking trails.

There’s a 26-page tome governing the look of the community. Basically, if you buy a lot here, you’re locked into building something with a Cape Cod feel. Keen gardeners are forbidden from planting large trees that would obstruct their neighbours’ views.

The 574-acre community is mostly made up of seniors, and, according to Cobble Beach developer Rob McLeese, only a quarter of them are from the GTA. The rest of Cobble Beach, he says, is made up of people from the Kitchener-Waterloo corridor, well as a few buyers from places like the U.K. and California, who’ve decided to make this part of their retirement plan.

Younger families tend to opt for the pre-built stock. Row houses start at $359,000, while a detached three-bedroom will set you back at least $524,900. Maintenance fees range from $206 to $355 per month.

Deep lots with guaranteed water views over the golf course sell for a premium.

A number of sprawling 5,000-square-foot “cottages” are in the process of being built, some of them larger than Rosedale Georgians—and almost as expensive. Many houses front onto the fairway, though, so buyers may want to make sure their insurance covers errant golf balls.

Corrections

May 27, 2016

This post originally misstated the minimum price of a detached three-bedroom home at Cobble Beach.